Market Research for New Products

The first thing you need to do is find out what box your idea fits in trying to avoid the labour of love box (it’s not very profitable as you can see).

You’re probably asking “How do you find out where your idea fits in the framework,” well, that’s where market research comes into play, and you need to know the answers to the following questions:

Who are they: What are your possible markets? Who you can target?

Hopes & Goals: What do people want to gain from your product or service

Pains & Fears: What are the problems or fears people have with the product or service

Obstacles: What do people need to overcome to start using the product or service

Solutions: What can be done for the above

Cool stories, insights, quotes etc.

The next step is finding out all of this information right? Well, GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND!

Your idea might be about fitness, cleaning service, food restaurant etc. Type in keywords for your idea to search and see what comes up. For example, if your business idea was about fitness, you could search for things such as:

“How to lose weight and gain confidence”

“Gain confidence by going gym”

“How to lose weight fast”

I could go on and on, but depending on what your idea is specifically you should tailor your search using keywords in it. Searching these will give you an indication of your different target audiences, and what is out there. Sticking with the fitness example, some could be for people that want to bulk up real big, some could be more casual, some could be for people that don’t have a lot of time etc. So it’s important to note these things down to see where in the market you could go for.

Another useful place to find your audience is on Amazon reviews. I’m sure there are many books on your chosen field, so taking a look at the reviews will tell you to what people like and dislike. So it’s important to look at both the high and low reviews of different books to see where you can come in and change that.

Lastly, Reddit and Quora are great places to get a more personal outlook on individuals as they will share on a more personal level and have an open discussion about it. Here you’re more likely to find information about peoples hopes, goals and fears, and what obstacles people face with so and so product or service.

After extensive research, you’ve finally got all your information down with the most important of them all being recurring themes. The things that continuously come up, especially in bullet points 2 – 4 can give you a great indication of where to go and what to do.

These are the main steps needed to complete your market research, and it’s also important to point out before I end is to talk to people you know that are interested. You’ll get a better point of view from first-person information.

Also, I’m sorry if this was not “all that,” as I’m kind of in a bad mood from earlier, but I hope you found this information useful nonetheless.